


i swam in the light

by moonatoms



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, idk if this is angsty, listen I know most of my stories are centered around stars, maybe a little bit?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonatoms/pseuds/moonatoms
Summary: When he first lit the stars and he looked up at them and saw how bright they shone, the world had felt endless and full of possibilities.That was before.





	i swam in the light

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything
> 
> Many thanks to titC for reading this over for me!

  
  


When he first lit the stars and he looked up at them and saw how bright they shone, the world had felt endless and full of possibilities.

 

That was before. 

 

Before he questioned and asked and demanded and was banned and punished and condemned to an eternity spent in darkness.

 

He was the one that made the stars shine and glow but even he could not bring the light with him into hell.

 

* * *

 

“Lucifer Morningstar - is that a stage name or something?” she asked him, holding up a notebook and a pen as her eyes met his over the piano, a cloud of smoke between them. 

 

In retrospect, the thing that stood out most for him at the beginning, at the point where their lives suddenly intersected, was the straightness of her spine, the way she stood tall in the suit that she wore almost like a guard. 

 

He could coax their deepest desires out of people and with some of them, he could look straight into their souls but her eyes betrayed nothing and even if her gaze was piercing, he couldn’t see anything in their blue depths. 

 

There was something fascinating about her, but it wasn’t yet more than that.

 

(He did not feel an instant connection once their eyes met or anything quite as solemn as that, nor did he realize the significance of their meeting in the grand scheme of things. 

 

It was nothing like those big love stories humans like to tell, those fairytales you’d read on cold autumn days, drinking tea and wearing woollen socks as the rain patters against the window pane.

 

On any other day, with any other case, they may have parted ways and her memory would have faded from his mind with time and the arrival of new faces in his life.)

 

She was gorgeous by any standard but he particularly liked the sharpness of her gaze, the way she carried worlds on her shoulders but that you could still see the point where her edges gave way to something softer.

 

Fascinating, yes, and intriguing. 

 

And maybe for some it would have been a better story if that was what drew him in.

 

It wasn’t.

 

Instead there was an image burned into his eyes of gunshots and dropping to the ground and a body going limp in his arms, and a pang of something else that wrapped around him with iron hands and wouldn’t let go. 

 

The rest came later.

 

* * *

 

It came later, when they had solved the case and the next one too. And the one after that.

 

When her only answer to his question about her desires was a raised eyebrow and a quip.

 

When she shot him and he realized he could bleed, and realized it again when he told her she made him vulnerable too and the knife sliced through his skin.

 

When he went to hell for her - twice - back to the darkness that no light could reach just so she could live.

 

When he left to give her a choice and came back and when he woke up in the desert with wings on his back.

 

When he watched her stay and still somehow leave when she chose someone else for a time.

 

When she kissed him and when he kissed her, by the ocean once and again on a dark balcony, day and night, her touch so gentle on his burning skin.

 

When he shielded her body from bullets with his wings and felt the pain but it didn’t matter, not unless she was whole and safe.

 

When he drove the demon knife deep into her ex-fiancé’s chest and felt the life drain out of him.

 

When he told her he was the devil, again and again, different words but same meaning. 

 

When one day, she finally believed him.

 

* * *

 

“It’s all true,” she said and for a brief moment, he saw the fear in her eyes. But then they cleared and for a second, he felt like he was standing under the wide open skies again, with the stars shining and the night so bright.

 

“Does it hurt?” she asked on an exhale and then: “It’s okay.”

 

She repeated it, again and again, with every step she took towards him until their bodies were aligned.

 

Her touch was softer than a feather and his chest hurt but his soul felt lighter than it had in eons.

 

* * *

 

He could not bring light into the dark corners of hell, but he’d climbed out of them and come to Earth where you could see the sky and the stars. 

 

It was always loud and the light always seemed a little dimmed but he knew now that life wasn’t as bright as the night had seemed when he first created starlight.

 

It was full of darkness and heartbreak and disappointments. Sometimes he could still feel the fire lick at his wings, the way the world had turned as he fell, the feeling of knowing how much the landing would hurt, and when he did land, it was worse than he could ever have imagined.

 

He felt it all, in the depths of the night when he was lying awake staring at the ceiling that did not emit any light. It was better with her lying next to him, curled into his side, her breathing warm and even on his skin. 

 

It was better and sometimes it was good and instead of the fire he felt nothing but the gentle touch of her fingertips. Other times the flames engulfed him again and he woke up sweating and desperately trying to draw air into his lungs.

 

The thing is, nobody had ever wanted him for who he was. Not for the scorched red skin and fiery eyes, and even less for what lay below. His skin was marred but it held him together, hid the cracked pieces of his soul, the hollow beating of his heart.

 

Nobody had ever wanted him for who he was. Not his father, not the world.

 

But she did.

 

Craning his head, he watched the way her hair was splayed out on the sheets, the way her hand was clutching the pillow his head had rested on just minutes ago. The steady rise and fall of her chest.

 

It didn’t mend his soul, couldn’t paint over the cracks in his heart but it made it easier to carry this weight that held him down, made it easier to breathe. 

 

Made it easier to remember that yes, he had fallen, but maybe he was rising, too. Maybe this was not a conspiracy and she was not something to just be ripped from his hands again the second he felt safe and secure for once in his life. 

 

Maybe it would all be okay.

 

* * *

 

Of course this is not a fairytale. It’s not a tale of sadness either.

 

Like everything in life it’s nuanced and like all the different shades between where black turns into grey and then into white.

 

The important thing was that he learned to breathe. He learned to breathe and to trust and that when she walked out of the room and slammed the door it didn’t mean they were over. He learned to fall asleep without the fear of waking up to find this was all a dream. He learned to believe.

 

And yet there was still that icy cold feeling deep inside him that one day this would all be over. She was still made of flesh and bones and blood that could run out and there are too many ways for humans to die.

 

Sometimes he felt like the weight of knowing she would eventually die would break him. She’d go to heaven and he couldn’t and 80 years may seem long to a human but he’d been alive almost as long as time. 

 

Sometimes he prayed and he pleaded and begged and hoped and other times he became bitter and angry. 

 

“It’s okay,” she had said when she’d discovered he was the devil. “It’s okay,” she said every time it came up. Every time he cracked and broke and held her closer, let the beating of her heart soothe him at least for that second.

 

(And maybe that is the image that described them best, the way they stood in the moonlight with his head pressed against their chest and their eyes closed. His hands were tightly clasped around her back, her fingers were caressing the hair at the nape of his neck and in the faint light of the night, it was almost as if they were one).

 

But time passed around them and her heart was still beating and she still smiled at him widely when he woke her with soft kisses on Sunday morning and brought her breakfast in bed and maybe that was enough, too. 

 

The world had never wanted him for who he was, but she did and she loved him with a fierceness that was brighter than even the starlight had been when he first created it, back when the world had seemed wide and endless and full of possibilities.

 

It didn’t anymore. The light had dimmed but sometimes the brightness still shone through.

 

Time was ticking and the future was uncertain but they had this, these moments, stolen kisses and hearty laughter and the way their fingers fit together when they were walking and it wasn’t always enough but when it was his heart was full and he knew, no matter what would happen or how the universe would look in ten years or a billion, he knew he wouldn’t trade this for anything.

 

Wouldn’t trade her for anything.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Jonah's "Wicked Fever".
> 
> So I know I am not always great at responding to comments and I just wanted to apologize for that and say that they are very much appreciated, I am just easily overwhelmed by these things but I am trying to get better! My brain is just incapable of handling people saying nice things about me a lot of the time but I know that's not a good excuse. ANYWAY, if you have ever commented on any of my fics: thank you so much! I do very much appreciate it!
> 
> Have the best day!


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